Kidnap 2/5
Down on her luck waitress Halle Berry takes her 6 year old son for a day out to the local park, there she takes a call from her lawyer giving her bad news over her custody battle with the child's father. While distracted by the phone call she loses sight of her son momentarily,only to see him being bundled into a car and driven off at speed. Naturally she gets in her own car and gives chase... implausible thriller at least rattles along at a good lick and Berry still looks hot...passable but forgettable.

6 Days 2/5
Very dry account of the 6 day Iranian Embassy siege that took place in London in 1980. Even at 94 minutes this feels drawn out and Abbie Cornish playing Kate Adie is terrible here, her reporting to the camera stilted and forced. Mark Strong is reliable in a thankless role as a police chief,who it appears is more concerned with the terrorists welfare than the hostages.

End of Days (USA, 1999) [Hulu] - 3.5/5
Surprisingly good action horror with Arnold in fine, charismatic form. Solid action, amusing end-of-the-world scares, boobs, and some great scenes between Gabriel Burne (as Satan) and Arnold. And what's best, it gets better as it goes on (the helicopter scene in the beginning is probably the worst due to a very obvious stunt double). If remade today, this would be a CGI mess. I hadn't seen this since it first came out, and I think it gotten "better" in 18 years now that action cinema has gone down the gutter, and the film's depiction of its own time has become a more interesting topic. One does hope more thought had been put into the way Satan takes human form and how one can beat him, though... with a bit of body horror or splatter philosophy the film could've been more logical and even more interesting. Whether the R-rating would have allowed that is a different matter.

Hannie Caulder (1971-UK) **
Raquel Welch looks stunning as a gang rape victim out to avenge herself and her murdered husband with a six shooter.
Uneven western works in parts, but paints its nasty villains as comic buffoons, at odds with the seedier aspects of the story.

Lovelace (USA, 2013) [Hulu] - 2.5/5
Linda Lovelace biopic starts out relatively well as a lightweight Boogie Nights with some 70s groove, but turns into a clichéd and dull drama during its second half. Leading performances are all fine, though, and Sharon Stone (entirely unrecognizable) and Robert Patrick are excellent as parents.

A question to those who have seen the film. Did Hulu feed me some strange censored version? Every time the characters are watching 8mm films there is just a green screen in the background. Looks very odd. Is it supposed to be like this?

HungFist wrote:
A question to those who have seen the film. Did Hulu feed me some strange censored version? Every time the characters are watching 8mm films there is just a green screen in the background. Looks very odd. Is it supposed to be like this?

HungFist wrote:
A question to those who have seen the film. Did Hulu feed me some strange censored version? Every time the characters are watching 8mm films there is just a green screen in the background. Looks very odd. Is it supposed to be like this?

Mississippi Burning (1988-USA) ***
Absorbing drama, based on true events, about an FBI investigation into the racist murder of three young civil rights workers in 1964.
Gene Hackman is great, as usual, and the subject matter is strong, even if liberties were apparently taken.
A couple of key confrontations don't ring true either, but taken as a whole a worthwhile film.

The VVitch: A New-England Folktale (USA, 2015) [DCP] - 2/5
Irritating and pretentious modern horror film refrains from delivering the goods as it thinks it's above its genre. The (seemingly) authentic portrayal of the era, however, is impressive.

Tactical Force 2/5
Cheap DTV actioner with Steve Austin & Michael Jai White as SWAT team members locked in a battle with two rival armed to the teeth gangs. Not bad, i got my £1's worth from Poundland.

I,Frankenstein 1.5/5
The opening minutes of another Frankie movie suggest an interesting spin on the tale,unfortunately that soon changes and we are left with a noisy Underworld type CGI fest.Aaron Eckheart is a boring Monster and Bill Nighy is there to chew the scenery.

Outland 3/5
Decent early 80's sci fi with Sean Connery as a Marshal sent to a colony where strange deaths are occuring. A very Alien type vibe to this,you could pass it off as being part of the same universe.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2 3/5
Sequel offers more of the same and brings in Tango & Cash to join in the fun.at 135 minutes,overlong but a good blast.

Damnation Alley (1977-USA) **½
Post apocalypse drama-thriller is pretty watchable, but thoroughly unspectacular.
Ropey effects work; hard to believe this came out the same year as Star Wars and Close Encounters.

Evidence (2012-USA) **½
Detectives piece together a desert massacre from video camera captures.
Not the biggest fan of found footage flicks, but the filmmakers (almost) manage to pull off something a little different.
The twist doesn't make sense... but do they ever?

Death Wish II (1981-USA-Israel) **
Nasty, graphic rape 'n' revenge sequel with Charlie B. doing what he does best.
Pure exploitation, with no concession toward good taste, but compelling all the same.

The Avengers (USA, 2012) [Hulu] - 1/5
This is only the second recent Marvel film I've seen, the first one being Guardian of the Galaxy which was about as much fun as watching paint dry. This one I managed to watch for about 15 minutes before the film put me into coma. Too silly to be taken seriously, but not silly enough to be enjoyable, and as an action film these kind of superhero CGI melees are just beyond boring. Even Robert Downey Jr., who was quite watchable in Iron Man, is a total a total bore here. I skimmed through the rest of the film and felt suicidal. As bad as the worst Roman Porno films. Obviously Marvel is not my cup of tea, no need for me to watch any of their new films ever again.

A Fish Called Wanda (1988-UK-USA) ***
When I first saw this on TV in 1991 I thought it was the funniest movie ever.
It doesn't hold up as well as all that, but it's still an enjoyable, sharply scripted farce.
Kline won the Oscar, but for me writer, lead actor, and uncredited co-director John Cleese is MVP.

The Quest (1996-USA) **½
Pleasingly old-fashioned adventure digs its script out of mothballs and skimps on the martial arts.
Not something I'd usually say, but this is about a half hour too short.
A film of this grandeur and scope needed more plot, more character, and more fighting.
It's hard to say how much the PG-13 influenced the brevity of the bouts.
A good looking film for which debuting director JCVD deserves some credit.

Wolf Lake (1980-USA) **½
Military deserter (and girlfriend) become targets for ageing veterans in wilderness trappings.
For a good while this isn't half bad - a tense drama with some interesting moral conflict.
The climactic violence (and draggy build up) is less sure-footed.

Friday the 13th (USA, 2009) [Hulu] - 3/5
I actually enjoyed this a fair bit more than the original (which was so boring it took me two attempts and 15 years to finish). Character depth is zero, but the film is far better paced than the 1980 original with more kills and loads of sex. It's also not really a pure "remake" (despite many people saying so) but more like a "sequel remake reboot" that has the same concept and structure as but is set a couple of decades after the original.